Works Exhibited
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Justin Adian, Richard Artschwager, Tauba Auerbach, Martin Barré, Jean-Michel Basquiat, David Batchelor, Dike Blair, John Chamberlain, Dan Christensen, Dan Colen, Ida Ekblad, Jeff Elrod, Urs Fischer, Jack Goldstein, Piero Golia, Kim Gordon, Katharina Grosse, Wade Guyton, Richard Hamilton, Keith Haring, Hans Hartung, Alex Israel, Anish Kapoor, Paul Klee, Jeff Koons, Harmony Korine, John Latham, Joseph Logan, Nate Lowman, Olivier Mosset, Takashi Murakami, Albert Oehlen, Jules Olitski, David Ostrowski, Steven Parrino, Sigmar Polke, Stephen Prina, Ugo Rondinone, Pamela Rosenkranz, Sterling Ruby, Ed Ruscha, Mira Schendel, Julian Schnabel, David Smith, Rudolf Stingel, Blair Thurman, Charline von Heyl, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, Franz West, Michael Williams, Christopher Wool, Richard Wright
Gagosian is pleased to present Sprayed, organized by Jona Lueddeckens and Greg Bergner.
This extensive exhibition spanning four generations explores the myriad ways in which artists have employed the impulsive yet depersonalized and non-gestural forces of spray. It begins with Paul Klee’s work on paper Seltsames Theater (1929), where he improvised with a blowpipe to achieve hazy background effects in a circus scene. This tentative experiment presaged the bold and diverse artistic license that would come with the postwar advent of aerosol paint as a consumer product and the use of the industrial paint compressor.
From the mid-1950s, sculptor David Smith sprayed enamels over various studio objects and offcuts laid on canvas and paper as stencils; the resulting images recalled Paleolithic cave paintings made by blowing pigment over hands pressed flat. John Chamberlain blurred the lines between painting and sculpture by torquing scrap automobile parts into painterly abstractions, then enhancing the original paint surface with fresh sprays of colored lacquer. Lawrence Weiner’s interaction with the medium resulted in a simple, dispassionate instruction: TWO MINUTES OF SPRAY PAINT DIRECTLY UPON THE FLOOR FROM A STANDARD AEROSOL SPRAY CAN (1968), while Martin Barré tested it at different distances and pressures in a series of rapid strikes producing sequences of stripes and cryptic punctuations on paper.
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Artists
Richard Artschwager
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Dike Blair
John Chamberlain
Dan Christensen
Dan Colen
Urs Fischer
Jack Goldstein
Piero Golia
Katharina Grosse
Richard Hamilton
Keith Haring
Alex Israel
Anish Kapoor
Jeff Koons
Harmony Korine
Nate Lowman
Takashi Murakami
Albert Oehlen
Steven Parrino
Sterling Ruby
Ed Ruscha
Julian Schnabel
David Smith
Rudolf Stingel
Blair Thurman
Andy Warhol
Lawrence Weiner
Franz West
Christopher Wool
Richard Wright
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Sprayed: An Interview with Peter Stevens
Harnessing the gestural, unpredictable, projectile qualities of spray paint, artists have repurposed it as an alternative to the brush, to create hazy textures, drips, puddles, and graffiti-like text. Peter Stevens discusses this history of spray paint as an artistic medium with Alison McDonald.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2019
The Winter 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring a selection from Christopher Wool’s Westtexaspsychosculpture series on its cover.
Albert Oehlen: Maximum Chance Maximum Control
The artist met with art historian Christian Malycha to discuss his newest paintings.
Eilshemius and Me: An Interview with Ed Ruscha
Ed Ruscha tells Viet-Nu Nguyen and Leta Grzan how he first encountered Louis Michel Eilshemius’s paintings, which of the artist’s aesthetic innovations captured his imagination, and how his own work relates to and differs from that “Neglected Marvel,” Eilshemius.
Myth-Maker
Alexander Wolf explores the economic, social, and methodological concerns of Piero Golia’s art practice, revealing the real-world implications of the artist’s experiments with form and process.
Play
Urs Fischer and choreographer Madeline Hollander speak with novelist Natasha Stagg about the ways in which choreographic experimentation and an interest in our ability to project emotion onto objects led to the one-of-a-kind project PLAY.
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